


Climax

by Satellite_Of_Love



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Blood, Claustrophobia, Drama, Drug Use, Everyone's POV, Freezing, Horror, LSD, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Murder, Non-Consensual Drug Use, OT8 narration, Panic, Psychosis, Schizophrenia (talked about), Self-Harm, There's a kid in the story, Thriller, Unrequited Seungjin, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:40:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24882445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satellite_Of_Love/pseuds/Satellite_Of_Love
Summary: After days of rehearsing for their latest show, a group of dancers decides to hold a party. As the effects of the wine become unfamiliar, as they lose hold on themselves and reality, the group starts falling into a collective state of psychosis.In an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere, violence starts escalating at an alarming rate. How far will they go?Based on Gaspar Noé's film: Climax
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Minho | Lee Know, Han Jisung | Han/Kim Seungmin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 25





	Climax

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! 
> 
> I will ask you to please consider not reading this if you are sensible to any the following topics: death, murder, blood, claustrophobia (being locked in a small place), freezing, self-harm, graphic descriptions of anxiety, paranoia, panic and psychosis. There is also a child in this story and while he physically remains unharmed, he goes through very stressful situations.
> 
> On another note, this will probably be very dizzying to read. The narration comes from people that don’t have the best hold on their surroundings, it jumps from one thing to the other and can get really tiring. If you are okay with all of this, then go for it!
> 
> I don't condone any of the actions that happen in this story, this is mostly a self-indulging fic I made after watching the movie. This might also not be a correct representation of a lot of situations, this is a fiction work and shouldn't be taken as an accurate depiction of mental illness and drug consumption.

At nine p.m. the rehearsals are officially done. Chan smiles at them and tells them how proud he is of all the effort put in the act, he is confident that this production will be the best one of their career so far.

At nine p.m. in a hotel in the middle of nowhere, with no one else but the dance crew populating it, the party begins.

Minho’s hands have five fingers. Not five in total, five fingers in each of them, making a total of ten. Ten fingers that stretch more than what he remembers fingers stretching, if fingers are supposed to stretch at all. Under his fingers the floor seems to be getting further away, impossible to reach even if he had desired to do so, shifting in ways that don’t seem to fit with his idea of what a floor is supposed to be.

Accompanied by a piercing dizziness, Minho’s head jerks up to look at the dance floor surrounding him. The sounds are muffled and the movements are either too rapid or too sedated. As if it was an amateur director’s film, his vision feels like a camera filming at an incorrect number of frames per second, choppy and cheap at times, too prolonged and cohesive at others. But as Felix stretches in a way that seems unhuman, as Hyunjin starts pushing Jisung and Seungmin screams while hugging his legs, Minho arrives to a conclusion he should’ve seen sooner: Everyone in there is fucked up.

His heels stick to the floor as he tries to reach Chan, dancing on his own in a corner with his plastic cup of wine in his hands, talking to the air in front of him as if hoping for a coherent answer that won’t come. The lights over him are yellow and then red and then green and then some other color Minho doesn’t remember ever seeing in his life.

Looking into the eyes of the person responsible of everyone’s well-being and finding nothing in them triggers a second realization on Minho: Everyone in there is fucked up. Fucked up, fucked up. He doesn’t mean drugged this time, he means fucked up as in there’s no way out of this. Chan is just as drugged as everyone else and everyone else is fucked up, including Chan.

His brain feels like a mush, wet and stupid and useless and frustrating, his words are slurred and far from intentional, he has lost control over what he says and does, over what he thinks and what he feels and what is happening and he wants this to end, to end, to end, to end, to end, to end, to please, please end, to end, to end, to please, please end right now.

‘’Chan, what…?’’ His tongue feels lazy in his mouth, and he wonders if he has actually said the words since Chan doesn’t seem to have acknowledged them. With the slow pace of a slug- and the metaphor works in more than one way- Minho raises his hands until his fists are holding Chan’s collar with the maximum amount of strength he is capable of using. Sticky, sticky, like a slug, his grip shakes Chan until he screams and looks at Minho as if he hadn’t seen him at all before that.

Minho presses his nose against Chan’s, they are both sweating and trembling, and under the deafening music he needs to scream to be heard, every word that comes out of him takes more effort than what is bearable. ‘’Chan, what the fuck did you put in the wine? Chan, what the fuck…what the fuck did you put in the wine?’’ Minho’s heels start feeling slippery, putting a lot more weight on Chan’s collar as he holds from there, trying to prevent his imminent fall, all while his vision of the man is starting to twist and turn. ‘’Chan, why? Why, why, why? What the fuck did you put in the wine?’’

The eyes in front of him are no longer empty, Chan’s pupils are now constricted with horror as he too comes to the realization of what has happened. In a hurry, Chan bends his wrist and spills the content of his cup into the floor, his eyes fixed on Minho’s the whole time. The sound of the liquid as it hits the floor and splashes Minho’s ankles is making him think about how much he needs to go take a piss.

When Chan decides to let himself drop into the floor, he takes Minho with him, the latter winces but isn’t really hurt by the impact. His knees feel alien, as if they belonged to someone other than him. The lights keep on turning on top of them.

There are two screeching sound at once, the one coming out of Chan’s mouth and the one that his trembling hands are making as he desperately tries to wipe up the poisoned liquid from the floor. It doesn’t matter how hard he tries to wash it away, how much he scratches it with his nails, the liquid is still there, mocking him with his never-ending presence. Chan starts crying as his movements become erratic, he doesn’t want this to be real, he needs the wine to go away. But…but now the liquid is on his hands, soaking them and making its way into his bloodstream through his pores and drugging him further , the idea eliciting another scream from Chan.

In front of him, Minho has put his hands over his ears in what probably is an attempt to protect them from Chan’s screaming. The older man is now copying the movements, placing his hands over his face, trying to get rid of the substance that has tainted his fingers. Every idea is worse than the previous one, now his face has wine on it, with tear after tear running down on top of it, smudging it further instead of washing it away.

‘’I didn’t…I didn’t do it, Minho.’’ Chan sobs, taking Minho’s hands away from his ears, he needs him to hear him, to believe him. ‘’I didn’t put anything on the wine, I swear I didn’t, I swear it, Minho…Min, it wasn’t me.’’

Smudged lipstick, unfocused eyes and sweaty skin, with his shirt coming down and revealing one shoulder, Minho appears to be even more beautiful that he has ever been. The man is trembling and heavily breathing, looking as if the air coming into his lungs was burning his guts, his eyes watering every time he inhales.

As he stretches his hand, Chan is reminded of that time in his childhood when he touched the fire of the stool and ended up burning the tip of his fingers. His mother had told him, she had said again and again _Channie, don’t touch the stool or you’ll get burned_. She had said it but he had touched it all the same. His mom isn’t here this time, but he is as afraid, seduced and provoked as the fleeting color of fire had once made him.

In queue with his thoughts, the light shining on Minho’s drops of sweat turns yellow and orange, making Chan feel entrailed and intrigued as he sees his own hand getting closer, its reflection visible in Minho’s cat eyes. When skin meets skin the world seems to stop for a second. Seungmin’s screams fade away and the music’s volume goes down. The only sound loud enough to be heard is the sigh they both let out as their touch seems to become too much.

One thought raises from the sea of nothingness that Chan’s brain has become, one idea that sobers him just enough to know that this is not the time to be fooling around with Minho.

His son is upstairs.

His grab on Minho’s cheek should be painful, but the man doesn’t complain as Chan looks for something, anything that will keep him grounded.

‘’Fuck…fuck…my son, my son is upstairs…I gotta…’’ Minho is now pressing his face against Chan’s hands, feeling soft and rough and sticky, too sticky, too sticky. Chan is afraid that his hand will be left adhered to his face forever. ‘’Minho, I didn’t do it, my son…I gotta go, I need to check him.’’

‘’Everyone...everyone is fucked up, Chan.’’ Minho explains as he bites his lips, overwhelmed by the sensation of Chan’s palm caressing his face. ‘’You were in charge of the punch, what did you put in it?’’

‘’I didn’t put anything. I drank it too, Minho, why would I drug myself?’’

People are getting closer, there are shoes surrounding him and one of them is kicking Chan in the shoulder. The pain is horrible and barely perceivable at the same time. The person with the big shoes is blocking the lights, his shadow engulfing the two men kneeling on the floor.

‘’What the fuck did you put in the punch, Chan?’’ The shoe pushes his shoulder once again, harsher this time. ‘’What is this? I didn’t sign up for this, I don’t do fucking…fucking drugs, Chan.’’

The voice is familiar. Of course it is familiar, Chan knows everyone in there, it would be preoccupying if it was a voice he didn’t know. He wants to turn around and put a face to the voice but his hand is stuck in Minho’s face and he can’t seem to be able to get it out.

‘’He didn’t do it, Changbin, he didn’t do it, he drank from it.’’ Minho intervenes, putting one hand up to try and stop Changbin from kicking Chan again.

 _My son, my son, my son, my son, my son,_ Chan thinks as he disentangles himself from the captivating energy surrounding Minho. Getting up is a disastrous and hard task, but Chan doesn’t have any other option other than doing it. Behind him, Minho and Changbin might still be bickering, in any case Chan doesn’t have the concentration to make out the meaning of their voices, they sound as a mix of syllables that don’t make a lot of sense when put together, overlapping and dancing in the same way everyone else is doing it.

There are people on the couches making out, others are vomiting and some are screaming their lungs out. Every step Chan takes is more of a stumble than anything else.

Once he shuts the doors of the main salon the air becomes quieter but also more threatening. As he starts walking into his room, the music fades away and the only sound around him comes to be his shoes hitting the floor. The lights on the hallways are crimson, but as the space stretches and expands the illumination comes to an end and Chan is absorbed by a dark void.

On the other end, a green light awaits him, yet every step he takes seems to leave him farther from the light than what he was to start with. He unfolds his arms from where they were trying to maintain the heat, stretching them as he figures that maybe he will be able to reach his destination more quickly that way.

The rectangle of light starts turning, and just like an airplane with a failing radar horizon, the lines get wobbly and he stumbles over something on the floor, something he couldn’t have possibly seen. The faint line of green glow is enough to distinguish the almost unconscious figure he has stumble upon.

Jeongin opens his eyes to encounter Chan offering him his hand. At least he hopes he is being helped, since Chan’s big hand so close to his face could also be mistaken for a menacing gesture.

‘’What are you doing there, Jeongin?’’ Chan asks, screaming even though there is nothing to interfere with his voice in there. The sound reverberates and makes the pain in Jeongin’s head grow louder and more uncomfortable, a pitching sound now added to it. He must have hit his head against the ground, it definitively hurts more than it should.

‘’I’m... I’m not sure.’’ With as much will he can gather, Jeongin passes a hand through his head…is that…is that blood or is it sweat? What…what is that? He smells like sweat but the liquid seems to be thicker than it should. ‘’Chan, am I bleeding? Chan, please tell me I’m not bleeding.’’

‘’I have to go see my son, Jeongin. I’m sorry.’’ Chan excuses himself as he hurries Jeongin to get up. Getting up hurts a lot, his legs feel like trembling jelly, ready to give up at any point. ‘’You don’t look like…like you are bleeding. You look okay, you look okay.’’

‘’I saw your son.’’ Jeongin remembers in a flash. He can see the kid in his memory, tucked in his bed as he peacefully sleeps.

Chan’s eyes widen in a way that makes Jeongin want to go back to the floor, he looks scary. The pair of eyes keeps on getting wider and wider, defying the laws of what his face should be allowed to do.

‘’You…you what? What the fuck did you do?!’’

What is Chan implying? Can’t he see that Jeongin is trying to help him? He didn’t do anything bad to the kid, he was just trying to help him stay safe. That was it, wasn’t it?

‘’I was just checking on him, he’s fine, Chan.’’

‘’You fucking…what the fuck did you do?!’’ Chan grabs Jeongin by the arms and tries to shake him. Amidst the dark, Jeongin can’t really understand what emotions are being expressed in the face in front of him, making it impossible for him to react accordingly.

‘’Nothing…fuck, are you sure I’m not bleeding?’’ The amount of liquid coming out of his head keeps increasing, dripping and sticking and looking like a waterfall of darkness. ‘’Chan, I need to call an ambulance.’’

With short, slow and heavy steps, Chan is leaving his side, grumping and sighing and growling and screaming as he tries to reach his son’s room.

There had been something, something before this point, something hiding in his head that he can’t remember now. The whole history of humankind had unraveled before the current point he was in, but most of it didn’t matter now, it was just one specific point of it that he needed to remember. When the name Tusko is the only thing that comes to his mind, Jeongin wonders what kind of shitty clue his brain is trying to give him, how it is that Tusko can connect to what he is trying to recall.

The music that blasts once the door of the main salon is opened is one that Jeongin has heard before. He wonders if the dance music has been playing on loop, the same circular harmonies turning around the group of performers, the same punching beat.

The group of performers, there’s a problem with them, but what is it? Just like the music, the sensation he’s under is familiar, the deranged way in which everyone around him is moving too.

Granted, Jeongin is not in his right mind, but after finding this scenario he realizes that he is not as bad as he could be, not as bad as everyone else around him seems to be. It hits him, a name is put into the feeling as he realizes that he is under the influence of a particular drug, an influence he doesn’t recall agreeing to be under.

‘’Felix…’’ He says in a whisper, as if there was any chance at finding the boy just like that in the mess of lights and music and drugged, sweaty, bumpy people that keep on hitting him from every angle.

He finds Felix anyway, it is not difficult. The boy is standing in the middle of the room with people surrounding him, all of them staring at him with awe, praising him.

‘’Felix…’’ He says, but he is running out of breath and out of concentration. The music is captivating. ‘’Jisung…’’

Something bad is going to happen if he doesn’t remember.

But the lights are warm and the music is nice and Felix seems to be having so much fun.

Something really bad is going to happen if he doesn’t…

If he doesn’t…if he doesn’t what?

Jeongin can’t remember what he was so pressed about seconds ago.

Felix turns and turns and turns. Dances and prances and feels good. He stretches and looks at his reflection on the mirroring ceiling: he looks amazing. His smile turns wider as he moves in ways that subvert all progress he had ever had. Tonight, Felix is a dancer, a real dancer that deserves to be remembered in the annals of history.

Tomorrow is going to be a bad day. Every day after this one is going to be bad day. That’s the thing about peaking, that’s the thing about experiencing the best day of your life, what’s there to look forward after it? Is it even worth living the rest of it?

For all Felix knows, tomorrow might not even happen, he might be dead and buried, the sun might not raise and humanity might be destroyed. He will focus on what he has now and nothing else, not even the screaming around him will distract him from the best day of his life.

Seungmin has been screaming for a while now. He is scared to shut his mouth, his tongue feels heavy and swollen and he thinks he might choke on it if he even dares to shut his lips. This can’t be good for his voice, but he has other priorities to sort through first.

His nails are looking for skin to claw onto, to scratch, to clean, but most of his body is covered by clothes that don’t allow this to happen. His fingers move in a never ending quest to stop the vomit-inducing feeling that has overtaken him, tapping as if playing some instrument while they try to find that one thing that will bring him down from the horror that he is living.

Things around him are going bad, really bad. He screams because he doesn’t know in what other way he can stop the violence surrounding him, the lack of coherence, the amount of nonsense that the evening has become. He is useless against all of this.

‘’Minnie…Minnie please, please stop screaming,’’ Someone is telling him, perhaps putting their hand on his shoulder and trying to get Seungmin to calm down. ‘’Seungmin, please tell me what’s wrong so I can help you.’’

‘’Get the fuck out of here…fucking…you,’’ A slurred voice says from the other side, screaming to be heard over the music and the sound of Seungmin’s screeches, directing his voice to the person that had talked before. ‘’Minnie…Minnie please stop screaming.’’ He pleads as well.

Why is everyone so interested in what he does or stops doing? It is taking enough energy from Seungmin to stop himself from swallowing his tongue and choking to death, don’t the people around him have better things to do than annoy him? Don’t they have their own lives to worry about? Don’t they…?

Seungmin is no longer screaming.

The two people around him are, just as usual, Jisung and Hyunjin. In any other situation he would make fun of them, he would get angry and tell them that he’s tired of their masculine need to display power, treating him like a possession and fighting over him. They would then tell him that they aren’t fighting about him, that their reasons are different and completely valid and he would have no option but to leave the place. Once he leaves the place their fights tend to come to an end.

He feels sorry for Hyunjin, but it is about time for him to start accepting reality, he can’t sugar-coat everything for him. It is also time for Jisung to stop feeling so insecure about Hyunjin and understand that Seungmin has already made a choice.

He stops screaming because Hyunjin and Jisung are fighting and he needs to stop them, fucking pair of morons. In a middle of a daze, Seungmin can’t completely understand what it is that they are saying to each other, in any case he doesn’t need to understand what it is they are saying, history is circular and whatever happened in the past arises once again in the present. The only option to put a stop to this is to learn from it.

Jisung is doing a big effort to understand what is going on around him. Hyunjin’s violent demeanor doesn’t come as a surprise, he hates him after all, it isn’t strange that a drunk Hyunjin will try to look for trouble with him. Seungmin’s behavior is also not exactly new, this is not the first time that he sees him crying and screaming when things become too much.

But…it doesn’t add up. It doesn’t matter if the little pieces make some sort of sense in their own, put them all together and the image comes out as a bizarre painting whose meaning many will try to theorize and no one will actually find.

It’s been a while since Jisung decided to stop drinking, was it always like this? He has had his fair share of experience getting violent under the influence of alcohol, but it had never been like this.

‘’You are the one who did this,’’ Hyunjin says, shoving him backwards once again. His chest is going to end up bruising at this pace.

‘’What the fuck are you talking about?’’

‘’We are…we are drugged, Jisung,’’ Seungmin offers as an explanation, he looks as if the realization had just come down to him. ‘’That’s why I’m feeling so fucking bad, shit.’’

Them being drugged explains a few things, but not all of them.

‘’How is it my fault that you got high? I don’t get it.’’ On the floor, Seungmin looks back at him, his eyes are watery and his skin is sweaty. ‘’Seungmin, I thought this shit wasn’t good for you.’’

Why the fuck did Seungmin decide to get high with Hyunjin? It sounds like a horrible decision, one that he can’t help but get jealous about.

‘’I didn’t…it is bad for me, I didn’t do it on purpose.’’ Seungmin puts his hands over his head, looking overwhelmed at the lights and the sounds around him.

‘’I still don’t get it.’’

‘’You were the only one who didn’t drink, Jisung,’’ Hyunjin spits the words too close to his face. Jisung wants to punch him in the nose and break his stupid, pretty face, but he doesn’t have the time for this now. ‘’Look at us, we are all fucked up, all but you.’’

There’s someone behind him tugging at his shirt. There’s someone in front of him trying to hit him. There’s someone crying on the floor and someone screaming from the hallway.

Why are there so many people around him? Why are them all so close to him? Is everyone here really as fucked up as they look? Is Jisung the only sane person in here?

His breath starts hitching, _this can’t be good, this can’t be good_. There are too many people around, too many people acting crazy around him, too many people targeting for something he doesn’t have anything to do with.

He might not be under the effects of the drug, but the fear he is experiencing is as real as it can get. He turns around to see who the fuck is tugging at his shirt.

‘’Jisung, there’s something I need to remember, can you help me?’’ Jeongin asks, his eyes unfocused and his body swaying from one side to the other.

‘’What- what do you mean?’’

‘’I know that his son is fine that…nothing bad happened to him, but there something…something else I need to remember.’’

As the lights above them becomes white, Jisung is able to see the blood coming out from behind Jeongin’s head, it is not much, but any amount of blood coming out of it should be worrying.

He doesn’t like the sight of blood.

He doesn’t like this, he doesn’t like this at all. He doesn’t like this, he really doesn’t like this. He hates this, he hates this all and he needs to get out of here right now.

What is going on, why is Jeongin bleeding? Why is Hyunjin acting like this? Why are they saying that it is his fault? He doesn’t like the sight of blood, it brings him bad memories. He doesn’t like the drunk and drugged people around him, it brings him bad memories.

‘’It’s a nightmare…this is a nightmare,’’ Jisung cries as he trembles, embracing himself in a poor attempt to protect himself from whatever is going on outside. He needs to get out now, he needs to run away from here before he gets hurt. His feet are the only part of his body that reacts, making him get away as fast as he can to find somewhere to be safe.

Minho looks at his reflection and screams, scared with what he is seeing. He grabs as much water as he can with his hands and starts splashing it on his face, on his neck, on his shoulders. More, more water. He needs more water and he keeps on screaming because whatever it is he is trying to wash away he can’t…he can’t wash away whatever it is that has his body buzzing and burning.

His reflection is distorted, but is it, really? How can he affirm that the widen image isn’t his? He has been taught to rely on his senses to know what’s real and what’s not, but what’s there to trust when the image becomes deceiving?

Fuck, has he always been this ugly? Why did nobody say a thing to him before? _Another scream, is it coming from me?_ Well, the kids in his school used to say that he was ugly, but his friends had always said that they were just jealous, that he was pretty and not ugly like the mean kids said. Another scream and more water, Minho is soaking wet by now.

Who can he trust, then? He’s looking at his reflection and it is stretched and ugly, just plain fucking ugly. He doesn’t want to see himself anymore.

There’s screaming, screaming that doesn’t belong to him.

Chan’s sitting on the front of the locked door of the closet, writhing in pain as he repeatedly presses a knife into his arms. His screams are melting against the ones coming from the other side of the door, more urgent and pained, screeching in the need to get out. When the knife starts getting dangerously close to places that shouldn’t be cut, there’s something inside of him pushing him into action.

With trembling hands dripping water, Minho takes the knife away from Chan’s hands, throwing it, or at least trying to throw it and maybe failing in between. What’s important is that the knife is no longer hurting anyone.

‘’What the fuck are you doing?!’’ He screams at the coordinator, afraid with the way things are starting to go really bad.

‘’Min…Minho, he’s dead,’’ Chan sobs, hugging himself, grabbing his own hair and pulling it. Minho thinks that perhaps the pain is keeping him grounded, and that in any case it won’t ever match the pain the man must be feeling inside. ‘’He’s dead, Minho. I’m going with him.’’

‘’Don’t be fucking stupid, Chan.’’

‘’He’s dead, Minho.’’

It takes a big effort from him to not surrender into the paranoia, to try to be the sane person here and put Chan back in the real world.

‘’I can hear him screaming, Chan, he is not dead, he is afraid…’’ Minho hugs Chan to keep him in place. ‘’He’s afraid, Chan. Afraid is good, that means he’s alive.’’

‘’Why is he screaming?’’ Chan sobs, pressing himself against Minho’s wet clothes, he seems incapable to grasp the meaning of what is being said.

‘’He is afraid, Chan, but that’s okay. He needs to be safe now and being locked in there is the best for him.’’

‘’I’m afraid as well.’’

‘’It’s going…it’s going to be alright,’’ Minho lies, holding Chan even closer. What can he do to comfort this poor man under such strenuous circumstances?

Chan puts his hands in Minho’s face and they look at each other. They smile, and under the beaming lights, the screaming and the people running around them, they find some sort of reassurance in each other’s lips.

The only upside Minho can find in the current situation is the thought of never having shared a kiss as intense as the one they are having. At least something good came of the whole fucking chaos they are inserted in…

…what a stupid thought.

‘’Minnie…Minnie come on.’’ Hyunjin whines as he follows him. Seungmin pretends to not have acknowledged his presence as he stumbles over the furniture while looking for Jisung.

An unknown rage overtakes Hyunjin, running on his blood and raising his temperature. On the background, a series of screams saying _DAD, DAD, DAD PLEASE, PLEASE GET ME OUT_ are heard, they are coming from inside the closet to their left and growing louder as they walk past them, but neither Hyunjin or Seungmin seem to notice that someone might be in need of their help.

‘’He’s…’’ There was something bad that had happened with Jisung, but what was it? Why does Hyunjin need to keep Seungmin away from him so badly? ‘’He’s dangerous, don’t go…don’t go with him please.’’

Seungmin’s skin is tainted with red, and Hyunjin can’t help but think that maybe his skin would be red no matter the lights of the hallway, after all that’s the color his skin adopts whenever he gets angry. He has always been slippery, but at this particular moment Seungmin seems to be impossible to catch.

When they pass through the open door of the toilet, Hyunjin notices that Felix is stuck in there, dancing in front of the mirror. He decides that even though nothing else has worked, he has no choice but to keep on trying. He _needs_ Seungmin to get away from fucking Jisung.

‘’Felix,’’ he barks as he grabs Seungmin’s wrist, stopping him and almost making him fall. Seungmin turns around and tries to get rid of his hold, yelling at him to set him free as he wiggles from one side to other. The movements make Hyunjin want to puke, but he needs to concentrate. ‘’Felix, Felix, you know what Jisung did, don’t you?’’

It doesn’t matter that they are in the same material space, Felix seems to have elevated into some sort of different realm. With dilated pupils, Felix is drooling, his eyes fixed on the mirror as he touches his skin. His hands travel through his face, his shoulders, his neck, with his breath getting heavier by the second. He’s not going to be of any help.

‘’Fucking stop, Hyunjin!’’ Seungmin screams, wobbling as he tries to get rid of the strong grip that won’t allow him to do as he wants. His eyes find Hyunjin’s, and the rage that they are both feeling is conveyed through the most focused gaze they can manage at the moment. Through gritted teeth, Seungmin is set to hurt him like he has never hurt him before. ‘’I think there’s something you are not fucking understanding, dipshit. Please listen to me closely ‘cause I’m not repeating this for you.’’

‘’Minnie…’’

‘’I’m. Not. Fucking. Interested.’’ With punctuation for every single word, Hyunjin feels as if four stabs had been directed straight into his gut, exacerbating his need to vomit. ‘’Now get lost before I punch your fucking face.’’

He wouldn’t, would he? Seungmin wouldn’t hurt his best friend, and yet his reddened eyes look capable of murder. Caring, funny Seungmin wouldn’t do anything bad to him, and yet there he is, showing his teeth, acting as if he was some sort of savage animal consumed by anger and fear.

‘’Jisung’s a…’’ Hyunjin tries, but his tongue isn’t working and he can’t finish the sentence in time. Jisung’s a…Jisung’s a…doesn’t Minnie know? Doesn’t Minnie know that Jisung’s a…?

‘’I don’t care,’’ Seungmin cuts him in, softer this time but still as terminating. ‘’I know what he did and I don’t care Hyunjin, I like him and not you and you have to accept it.’’

Hyunjin bends and pukes on the floor.

Jisung is crying, and Seungmin feels like he is mirroring him.

They do have a connection after all, Jisung has always known it, even when Seungmin has laughed at him and his magical way of thinking again and again.

He has always been inclined into explaining things in ways that make sense, but he doesn’t mind it if there’s no rational way of explaining why it is that Jisung seems to be inevitably linked with him.

Jisung is crying and so is Seungmin, just like it usually is.

Throughout his whole life, Seungmin has been hearing people say that you are is supposed to rely on your gut feeling to know how to act. For him it had been quite the opposite, Seungmin had been told to not hear what his insides tell him that it’s going to happen. After all, there’s no possible way for him to rely on his gut feeling when paranoia is a constant in his life, there would be no life for him if he paid attention to his insides, a place full of thoughts relentlessly trying to convince him that something is going to go wrong.

So he tries to calm himself down, he tries to hold Jisung and enjoy the way in which his tiny frame fits around his arms. He doesn’t kiss him. Not now, not under these circumstances, not when Seungmin is so drugged he can’t remember what has been going on around him.

Except he does remember. He remembers the angry people surrounding him, he remembers Hyunjin telling a choleric Changbin that Jisung was the only one that didn’t drink the poisonous punch. He remembers the collective feeling of outrage.

Jisung turns and buries his nose in Seungmin’s neck. It feels nice like this and he wishes things would stay like this. Deep inside he knows that wishful thinking is not going to do any good for him.

‘’You know that I love you, don’t you?’’ Lying on the bed, Seungmin tries his best to ingrain this moment in his memory, the thing inside of him is saying that this is going to be the last one.

‘’Of course I know,’’ Jisung chuckles in between his tears. ‘’What a silly question.’’

‘’You know that I don’t care about what you did, right?’’ The words come out slurred as Seungmin’s consciousness starts to slip away, frustration blooming at his inability to keep focused. Getting out of there, telling Hyunjin off, running up the stairs, and the crying, the endless crying had taken away most of his energy, and now it doesn’t matter how much he tries to grip it, he…feels…tired.

‘’I know…’’ Jisung answers after what could’ve been both hours or seconds of silence, Seungmin’s heart starts beating faster as the words snap him out of his dizziness. ‘’Maybe you shouldn’t.’’

‘’I shouldn’t what?’’

‘’Love me.’’

‘’But I do.’’

‘’I thought you were some sort of control freak,’’ Jisung tries to joke with a gloomy tone. ‘’I thought you could snap your fingers and stop whatever.’’

‘’Shut the fuck up, Jisung,’’ Seungmin whines, it is difficult to concentrate in whatever it is the other man is saying, his head keeps on spinning and he needs to make the most of what he’s given. ‘’I love you, that’s it, you can’t escape it.’’

‘’You really shouldn’t…’’

‘’Shut the fuck up and tell me that you love me back.’’

‘’Why?’’

‘’Just do it.’’

‘’You know that I love you, Seungmin,’’ Jisung mumbles, confused. ‘’Is there something going on? Well, something besides what I already know.’’

‘’I think…I think they are coming for you, Jisung.’’

Their tears become a mix as the heavy steps on the stairs are heard. Seungmin realizes that his body is not answering anymore, he will be helpless against whatever might happen from now on.

Seungmin has always wished he didn’t had a monster inside of him telling him that everything is going to go wrong, but right now the only thing he wants is to, once again, be mistaken.

Seungmin isn’t mistaken.

Changbin doesn’t do drugs.

Is not only that, it is not as simple as not doing drugs. He can’t, under any circumstances, do drugs.

Dance world is a weird world, you open its doors because you want to be a star and you end up doing molly and sucking some disgusting old man’s dick. But not Changbin, no, he has made an effort to follow the instructions given by his doctors, all of them.

There’s something dangerous running in his blood, hiding in the shadows and waiting for a slip, something that can be easily triggered by things like the drug he has very clearly consumed. He has seen it in his dad and he doesn’t want it. He can’t stress enough how much he doesn’t want it.

It’s been hard but he has managed to do it. For years now he has committed to daily exercise, both physical and intellectual, anything to keep his mind and body in a good, attentive place, he has watch out for potentially stressful situations and avoided them as much as possible. His life has been one long, hard attempt to prolong his healthy state, day by day he has struggled to make this possible.

But one day Han Jisung comes to fuck it all up.

He has known Jisung for a while now, even from back in the day when Jisung was far from the hippie he pretends to be nowadays, and he knows that Jisung is a synonymous for trouble. Everyone used to be scared of him and they had their reasons to be.

As it was, trusting Chan had been the most stupid decision he had ever made. Thinking that he would be able to keep order in a stupid hotel in the middle of nowhere had been downright idiotic, now Chan is crying like a maniac and Changbin has to take care of the shit show that this has come to be.

In the hidden core of his raging wrath there is nothing other than fear to be found. The sweat in his forehead drips down as a signal of the panic that has overtaken him. This is not just about being healthy, about being against drugs or about being a prude, this is Changbin’s worst nightmare coming true.

The only desire his being has ever harvested is to have a clear mind, a reliable brain that can be trusted in every situation, a clever intellect that avoids delusions and chooses reality. This desire had been snatched away from him. The viral germ has now been injected into him; he doesn’t have any saying in whatever may come next. He is no longer in control of his mind and body.

Being the first one to notice the effects of drugs wasn’t a surprise, after all he has had a lifetime of experience in keeping an eye for anything that will prove his fears right. When images started to distort and voices that weren’t there started to arise, Changbin understood the situation all too well.

Panic came for him in an individual package at first. He has seen this before, he has seen his dad like this, and he doesn’t want this to be his turn. But then panic grows larger, it becomes rhizomatic as branches start to come out and entangle in everyone around him. Changbin is not going crazy, not yet at least- he will have to deal with the results of the drug later, what happens is that every single person in that building is under an unknown effect. Every single person but one.

He is far more perceptive than anyone will give him credit for. Even as he and Hyunjin and a bunch of angry people take Jisung away from a screaming Seungmin, Changbin is quite aware of what is going on. Surrendering to panic is almost a conscious choice he makes, allowing the psychotic state to help him get a compensation for the situation he has unwillingly been put under.

Changbin knows a lot more that anyone will give him credit for. He hasn’t had much choice but to try to learn about this, to try to gain some control of the situation.

From what he has learned, collective states can become much more powerful and imposing than whatever state an individual may have. He would’ve never been able to pull this on his own, and none of the other people drowned in a collective desire would’ve done this if it wasn’t for the cohesive force of the group.

Outside there is nothing. Kilometers of snow dispersed in one of the coldest nights of the year. No one will help Jisung once he is out there. Good.

‘’Why?’’ Jisung asks, crying as they force him out.

‘’You were the only one who didn’t drink, Jisung,’’ Changbin explains.

‘’I didn’t fucking do it, ’’Jisung screams, pleading. ‘’I didn’t put drugs on the punch, I swear, please…please Changbin, please believe me.’’

Changbin has tried his whole life to avoid ending up crazy like his dad. He doesn’t want to hear and see things that aren’t there, he doesn’t want to spend his whole life in a paranoid state. The disease might be in his blood, and even though the chances are low, he doesn’t need to be put under situations like this one. He doesn’t feel pity for Jisung.

Hyunjin grabs Jisung and throws him out of the door. Changbin closes the door and locks it. Ten steps away and Jisung’s screams can no longer be heard.

Time becomes relative at times like this one, squeezing through an imaginary clock, speeding and then tangling.

At first Jisung had thought that this would be a situation he would get out of. At first he had thought that someone would come to help him, he was sure he would be able to fight the temperature and find some shelter. As time goes by, as his steps grow shorter and stumbling, he starts accepting that there might not be a way out.

An idea starts spreading everywhere, infecting Jisung’s body. He’s just feeling so tired, the soil seems comfortable and he figures that if he can rest for just a minute then he will gather enough force to keep going.

As the snow underneath him melts, as his cells start to freeze and perish, as Jisung shuffles off his mortal coil, two thoughts come to invade him.

First, he thinks that he deserves this; death is a reasonable punishment for a killer, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It doesn’t matter if he was young, it doesn’t matter if it was almost justified, and it doesn’t matter if someone as good as Seungmin says that it is okay and that he can love him no matter what. He deserves a punishment for flying of the handle in that fight years ago, and now he is getting one.

Second, it is difficult for him to not start laughing at the irony.

His memory is choosing his lasts minutes of consciousness to connect the dots that had been buzzing around. Jeongin had asked him for help to remember, and he wishes he could’ve helped him before, maybe that way he would’ve had a chance at getting a different fate. It doesn’t matter now, the images of Jeongin’s liquid LSD and its hidden place in the kitchen make no difference. He can only hope that his younger friend won’t be consumed by the guilt when he wakes up and realizes that Jisung has been killed because of what Jeongin did.

Cases in which children end up drinking bleach are common, so many parents put the bleach in Coca-Cola bottles and the children take them and drink them in one go. He had told Jeongin to be mindful of it, to not put it somewhere where it could get confused for something else. Jeongin had said that he would make sure of it, just not now, later. Chan probably confused it for something else and added it to the mix of the punch, it all seems so easy to understand now.

In the end, Jisung is the one getting punished, and it is okay. Right now it is time to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this probably wasn't as scary as it looked on the notes, but I rather be safe than sorry! 
> 
> As a last note I would like to add: I'm tired of mentally ill people being portrayed as evil or murderous. This is not what happens in this story. It is precisely the misinformation and fear of mental illness what makes Changbin do "bad things", not an actual illness. We really need to stop spreading this idea, so yeah, that.
> 
> If you liked it please consider leaving so comments and kudos, they are much appreciated! 
> 
> Go follow me on twitter [here<](https://twitter.com/satoflove?s=09)


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